Threats to Nonprofit Tax Exemptions

From the New York Times on May 26th.

In case folks out there have not heard of the recent challenges to nonprofit tax exemption and the Minnesota case I thought I would pass this along. Some concerns may be justified; how big should a university endowment be? Does that nonprofit hospital do enough to be considered a charity? Or maybe not. But those big dollars will get people talking and those nonprofits need to have a story to tell or one will be told to them.

A quote from the article really hits the mark for me:

The nonprofit sector is being pressed to be more business-like and to find new ways to fill the gaps between what [funders] will pay and what services cost, but then assessors want to treat us like businesses, which pay taxes.

I think this will be a big issue in the coming years as both charities and governments struggle to find more sources of revenue, especially in a troubled economy.